Glasgow was in a rare swelter and they had to push upstream through rowdy gangs of shirtless men already poached pink from the sun. The three travellers caught a corporation bus into Sauchiehall Street. She knew it was the bones of him that had become a dead weight. Yet he wavered on the corner as though the bag might tip him backwards into the gutter. Unsure of what he should take, he had packed it with half-hearted nonsense: an oversized Fair Isle jumper, teabags, his dog-eared sketchbook, a game of Ludo, and some half-used tubes of medicated ointment. Her boy was stooped slightly, the rucksack a little hump on his back. She fluttered her painted fingers and shooed him away. As she looked down upon him, Mungo shifted again, his feet turning towards home. It was a colour she had chosen to make her fingers appear fresher, because if her hands looked younger, then so might her face, so might her entire self.

She raised her tea mug in one hand and tapped the glass with her pearlescent pink nails. Mo-Maw swept the curtain aside and leant on the window frame like a woman looking for company. He would do anything just to make other people feel better. As his mother watched him through the ear-of-wheat pattern of the net curtains, she tried to convince herself that his twitch was a happy wink, a lovely Morse code that telegraphed everything would be okay. Turning back, Mungo squinted up at the tenement flat, and his eyes began to twitch with one of their nervous spasms. It was such an assertive gesture that it took everyone by surprise. It was the winner of two British Book Awards, including Book of the Year, and was a finalist for the National Book Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, Kirkus Prize, and others.Īs they neared the corner, Mungo halted and shrugged the man’s hand from his shoulder. His New York Times -bestselling debut novel Shuggie Bain won the 2020 Booker Prize and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The following is excerpted from Douglas Stuart's new novel, Young Mungo.

Douglas stuart young mungo